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Co-editors: John Heathcote • Seán Mac Mathúna
Consulting editor: Themistocles Hoetis
Field Correspondent: Allen Hougland

e-mail: thefantompowa@fantompowa.org

How this government has undermined society
By far the most dramatic threat to ordinary people's freedom in the last decade has been the growth of the database state. Under Labour's plans for 'transformational government', an almighty surveillance structure is envisaged, through which, by the admission of the man in charge, Sir David Varney, the state will know 'a deep truth about the citizen based on their behaviour, experience, beliefs, needs or desires'.

As Jill Kirby pointed out in a recent Centre for Policy Studies pamphlet, the government's intention is to centralise and share all information on the citizen, both horizontally and vertically, without the citizen's knowledge. It is hard to imagine a more sinister apparatus of intrusion, and so control, but the project advances untroubled by the scrutiny of Parliament.

American cryptographer and computer expert Bruce Schneier wrote: 'It is poor civic hygiene to install technologies that could some day facilitate a police state.'

From an Observer article by Henry Porter (Sunday March 9 2008)

From an Observer article by Henry Porter (Sunday March 9 2008), taken from a submission he made to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights.

 

'After the war, a state was created that we could all put our faith in. Now, incompetence, corporate greed and intrusion have alienated us from those who run it'

Another article by John Gray from the same newspaper a month before echoes much of what we have been saying in Flame for a few years now. He describes how the social contract between the State and the People has broken down; they provide nothing except repression of individual freedom, yet demand complete loyalty and obedience; as well as a large cut of every working person's income - which generally ends up in the pockets of their bourgeois friends (known as 'consultants' or 'entrepreneurs' ).

Communications

  • Under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (2002), government agencies make 500,000 secret interceptions of email, internet connections and standard mail.
  • Since summer 2007, the government and some 700 agencies have had access to all landline and mobile phone records.

Databases

  • Police build network of ANPR cameras on motorways and in town centres. Data stored for two years.
  • The National Identity Register will store details of every verification made by ID card holder. Data used without knowledge of citizens.
  • ID card enrolment will require biometric details and large amount of personal data.
  • The Home Office plans to take 19 pieces of information from anyone travelling abroad. No statutory basis.

Freedom of expression

  • Public-order laws have been used to curtail free expression.
  • The Race and Religious Hatred Act (2006) bans incitement of hatred on religious grounds.
  • Terror laws are used to ban freedom of expression in some areas.

The courts

  • Asbo legislation introduces hearsay evidence which can result in jail sentence.
  • The Criminal Justice Act (2003) attacks jury trial.
  • Admissibility of bad character, previous convictions and acquittals.
  • The Proceeds of Crime Act (2002) allows confiscation of assets without prosecution.
  • Special Immigration Appeals Court hearings held in secret.

Terror laws

  • Terror laws used to stop and search. Current rate is 50,000 per annum.
  • A maximum of 28 days detention without charge

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